The Tyranny of Resilience in Social Work Practice (part 2)
Our previous writings on the place and meaning of resilience in social work practice highlighted findings from our research which exposed practitioners experience of the application of resilience in practice as a punitive mechanism of coercion and control.
Our analysis of respondents comments suggests social workers are drowning in an ideological and theoretical ‘sea of me’ where reslience is pathologised, and intervention to address issues of non resilience are focused at an individual level rather than addressing issues of structural and organisational oppression.
A striking feature of participants responses , which further supported the ‘individualisation’ of resilience in practice, was their need to control/manage their emotions as part of demonstrating resilience. The inter-relationship between emotion and resilience is encapsulated in the notion of ‘emotional intelligence’.
Research suggests
“supporting the development of emotional intelligence and self determining behaviour may go some way to addressing the experiences of stress and burnout among social workers, and the retention of social workers in this profession” (Bunce et al, 2019: p20).
Whilst Biggart et al (2016) state
“emotional intelligence covers the ability to identify emotions in oneself and others and to manage emotions in oneself and others …… Research shows that Trait Emotional Intelligence helps reduce physiological responses to stress and is strongly associated with mental health” (p3-4)
However, it could be suggested uncritical acceptance of this strategy may exacerbate the current situation further. Again, as with resilience, this approach locates the ‘problem’ within the individual, and suggests emotional intelligence is something the individual must learn to improve their resilience, and ultimately their professionalism and wellbeing.
From an ideological perspective Binkley (2018) suggests in a neoliberal context ‘emotions are not diminished per se, but are re-conceived as resources and instruments for advancement’ (pp.581). In this context practitioners emotions are not crushed or suppressed they are re-made, produced and modified for the wider purposes of their organisation. If one lacks these
‘qualities, one should set about the work of generating them through the use of a set of generally available lifestyle techniques (self-help, physical exercise, popular psychologies, etc. To neglect the development of one’s emotional life is a failure for which no one else is responsible. In other words, emotions are no longer simply experiences or static states, much less traces of deeper subjective characters and truths: they are dynamic, plastic resources’ (Binkley, 2018: p582).
It is this notion of ‘plasticity’ that was most apparent within respondents responses, a belief that they need to be ‘flexible’, able to ‘bounce,’ able to ‘bend‘ to meet their professional requirements, to meet their organisational needs, to meet service users needs.
The neoliberal inter-sections between resilience, emotional intelligence, psychological theory and professionalism could be conceived as putting in place a set of internal restrictions on the professional that diminishes their power to challenge those that govern or the context in which they practice. From this perspective the individualisation of resilience provides a distraction to looking beyond the individual to deeper aspects of the political and structural. This was frequently apparent within respondents comments as the ideological, political and structural realms remained at a surface level confined to comments in respect of ‘limited resources’.
Previous research by Joseph (2013) firmly locates resilience as a form of ‘neoliberal governmentality’ arguing that it has become a normative force , deflecting attention from formal structural analysis and emphasising individual responsibility for solutions to collective problems. Evans and Reid (2013) present this as a paradox inherent within the concept of resilience and expose how resilient individuals are destined to remain constantly vigilant to adapting and therefore have less capacity to envision how to change their circumstances.
In this context resilience can be conceptualised as a tool of control retaining subjects in a permanent state of anxiety and denying them agency to address the source of their woes.
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To continue to read our analysis click here Tyranny of Resilience in Social Work Practice
To read the research overview click here Resilience Report 2020
(The Tyranny of Resilience, Part 1, can be found here)
Our starting point for this research was the voice of social workers who told us their stories, and our aim has been to honour their voices. We would like to thank all those who took part in our survey and apologise for the delay in publishing the results. We experienced a long period of delay as our analysis was lost in a social work journal peer review system for over a year. Having been advised the work required minor revisions our subsequent submission was rejected as ‘not adding anything new’ to understanding social workers experience of resilience, however, this work has always been about enabling the voice of frontline social workers who took part in our survey to have their voices heard.
We therefore respectfully ask you the reader to share this work if you feel able please as an act of solidarity and commitment to one another as a community of social workers, and activists, in the advancement of the social work profession.
Thank you.
Di Galpin 